We took a short walk this afternoon at Belmont Lake State Park (BLSP) to walk off our Christmas Eve dinner. When we arrived there were perhaps twenty-four Canada Geese on partially frozen Belmont Lake. Shortly after we started scoping at about 1:30PM geese started flying in from the northwest. Shortly after the Canada Geese (approx. 800) settled in we found six White-fronted Geese around one of the islands in the lake. The WFG's appeared to be of uniform size and proportion (neck and head) and the bills all appeared orange. I was not able to get any pictures, or see a level of detail on the birds I would have liked, so I hesitate to identify them to race (Greenland vs. North American race). Also present on the lake were seventeen Wood Duck. We failed to find a Cackling Goose in the large flock of Canada's. The two islands around which the geese clustered partially obscured our view; it is unlikely that we saw all the geese present.
If you are thinking of going to BLSP to see the geese it may be helpful to get there within the first two hours of first light or the last two hours before dark. I would hazard a guess that from the direction the birds flew in from, they may have been feeding in the St. Charles Cemetery property on the west side of Wellwood Ave. in North Lindenhurst. Ken & Sue Feustel -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES Archives: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
